Who shall we blame?

It  is looking more and more likely that we are about to vote for Brexit. And if that happens, who shall we blame? The list is a long one:

• the EU, for launching a botched single currency that has beggared half of Europe, and for not having the imagination to see that it cant go on like that
• Merkel, for first provoking then appeasing Putin, and for endless dithering on migration that seemed designed to persuade the British that they must fend for themselves
• the liberal elite, for having for decades rejected as racist entirely legitimate concerns about the scale of immigration (and they're still doing it)
• Cameron, for having played Russian roulette with the country's future to gain power (and lost)
• Johnson and Gove, for gleefully surrendering their better judgement to the populist daemons that lurked within them
• Corbyn, for having failed to energise Labour voters and the young, and for having made clear his own distinctive brand of unenthusiasm
• those who should have been among the Remain leaders, in industry and elsewhere, who allowed themselve  to be cowed into silence
  
• the young, for not bothering to register, not bothering to vote, not bothering  (honourable exception for the pro Remain students of Oxford Uni, who've been indefatigible)
  
• the old, for inflicting on the young their atavistic, destructive nationalist nostalgia.
  

But for myself, I shall especially resent the sensible, decent, liberal, educated people who keep telling me that there is no need to worry, that 'of course' we will never vote Brexit, for not stirring themselves to fight or thinking it strange and really a bit vulgar to do so, or who thought the arguments were too complex or too finely balanced to bother with.

And if you vote Brexit, who will you blame for the baleful consequences, foretold as they are by every world leader and every world and UK organisation of any standing? Not yourself, that goes without saying. Happily, the Tory press are already working on that, and I am confident that the culprits responsible for every disaster that unfolds post Brexit will turn out to be – yep, those damned foreigners. Again.